Thursday, August 06, 2009

Real Men Talking

When Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre was first published, under the pseudonym of "Currer Bell," the reviewers

were tricked into self-revelation. In the course of their fervent speculations about the identity of the author of Jane Eyre, they disclosed their firm convictions - or, to be more accurate, their prejudices - about the capabilities and limitations of women writers. Take, for example, Elizabeth Rigsby's famously scathing review, which offers clear evidence that the novel could not have been written by a woman [...]. Most engaging of all was the conclusion reached by Edwin Percy Whipple. He decided that Jane Eyre was the collaborative work of three siblings, two brothers and a sister [...] Whipple presumes that a woman must have had a hand in the writing, given details of dress, the sick chamber, and certain feminine "refinements of feeling," but then clarity, decisiveness, profanity, brutality, heat, passion, animal appetite, and slang - these are clear hallmarks of masculine writing. In fact, these markers of the male intellect are so conspicuous that the novel must have been written, at least in part, by that indisputably masculine mind, the author of Wuthering Heights. (Levine 70-72)

The author of Wuthering Heights was Emily Brontë, a woman.

I was reminded of these reviewers convictions about male and female authors when I read the comments an editor had made about Bev Vincent's writing:

The story was written from the point of view of a male protagonist. These comments are all from the same editor:

“It’s quite a challenge for a writer of one sex to explore writing from the perspective of the opposite sex. Bev Vincent has not done a convincing job.”

“The story seems far too personal, introspective and emotional for a man”

“And I can’t think of many guys from [setting] who call home every Sunday afternoon to talk to their family” [Emphasis his or hers].

“Most men don’t think deeply about the dewy greenness of nature.”

“She needs to write more convincing [sic] from a man’s perspective.” (via Ampersand, at Alas, a blog)

this was the most autobiographical story I’ve ever written, and all the things that the editor complained about were my real observations and my real thoughts cast into the mind of a fictional character participating in fictional events. I did, in fact, call home every Sunday afternoon to talk to my parents, while they were still alive.

To compound his or her arrogance, the editor claims that my prose is “overly elegant,” which is presumably his or her way of saying that a man would never write or think in elegant terms. Guess that means I write like a girl.

Bev doesn't write romance, but I've seen comments on romance websites about authors, writing under female names, whom readers suspect are really men and I've also seen plenty of advice to authors wanting to ensure that their male characters sound like real men. Leigh Michaels, for example, gives advice on

the main ways in which real men and women differ when it comes to talking - and how your characters should differ if they're going to be convincing. [...] Men use shorter and fewer sentences; women use longer, more complex sentences and string more of them together. Men say something is blue; women say it's robin's-egg blue, or navy, or teal.Men talk about actions or things; women talk about feelings. (166)

Michaels seems to have expectations of men and their use of language which match those of Bev Vincent's editor. Men, it would seem, are expected to be less emotional, less verbal, and less good at observing details. Deborah Cameron, however, points out that the scientific research that has been done in this area does not support such conclusions:

The idea that men and women metaphorically "speak different languages" - that they use language in different ways and for different reasons - is one of the great myths of our time. Research debunks the various smaller myths that contribute to it: for instance, that women talk more than men (research suggests the opposite); that women's talk is cooperative and men's competitive (research shows that both sexes engage in both kinds of talk); that men and women systematically misunderstand one another (research has produced no good evidence that they do).

There is a great deal of similarity between men and women, and the differences within each gender group are typically as great as or greater than the difference between the two. Many differences are context-dependent: patterns that are clear in one context may be muted, nonexistent or reversed in another, suggesting that they are not direct reflections of invariant sex-specific traits.

It should also be noted that how "real men" and "real women" speak may differ very significantly from one culture to another. For example

In the village of Gapun in Papua New Guinea, when a woman is annoyed with her husband, she swears at him for 45 minutes, at the top of her voice so the neighbours catch every nuance. During this “kros” — the word means “angry” — the target is not allowed to answer back, nor may anyone interrupt until she’s given her feelings full expression.

And what expression it is. The anthropologist Don Kulick recorded a typical kros: “You’re a ****ing rubbish man. You hear? Your ****ing ***** is full of maggots. You’re a big ****ing semen *****. Stone balls! ...****ing black *****! You *****ing mother’s ****!”

When the flowers of English womanhood carry on like this — at closing time on Friday night in Ipswich, say — they’re thought to be behaving laddishly. When the housewives of Gapun turn the air blue, however, they are only doing what comes naturally to a woman. The village men, apparently, pride themselves on their ability to conceal their opinions and express themselves indirectly: if they need to get a grievance off their chests, they get their wives to do it for them. (Herbert)

Clearly if a romance were to be set in Gapun, the author would only be able to write "real men" by utterly disregarding much of the existing advice about how to write "real men." Thinking about places which are distant chronologically rather than geographically, it seems to me that the mainly male Romantic poets, or an author like Thomas Hardy who produced long and very detailed descriptions of landscape, probably didn't write in a way that would convince Bev Vincent's editor they were real men and, even bearing in mind that people's written language can differ considerably from their spoken language, they probably didn't speak the way Michaels says real men do.

Female authors writing contemporary romances set in their own part of the world could take PBW's advice and "Hang out with some real live men. Note their body language, speech, and mannerisms. Observe how their behavior changes, and what triggers those shifts" but this wouldn't be so much help with depicting real men from different cultures, including those from different historical periods.

This sounds counterintuitive at first. How can dialogue sound authentic and yet not reflect real life closely? I'll give you the answer in a metaphor. The best dialogue is like vanilla extract. Instead of bottling every line of speech characters would use when speaking with each other, dialogue should give us the essence of their conversations.

Could it be that when many authors write "real men," they're actually writing men that their readers will believe are real, even though many actual real men, including Bev Vincent, in fact express themselves in language which might be deemed false or overly feminine by readers?

Cameron, Deborah. "Back Down to Earth." The Guardian 3 October 2007. [This is the third part of an extract from her book, The Myth of Mars and Venus. Links to all the parts, and more links to other analysis of gender differences are provided by RfP.]

The image at the top of the post was created by "Francis Barraud (1856-1924) [who] painted his brother's dog Nipper listening to the horn of an early phonograph during the winter of 1898" and it came from Wikimedia Commons. As adopted by the Victor Talking Machine Company in their advertising, the dog was described as listening to "His Master's Voice."

20 comments:

Oh dear. Whatever would prejudiced idiots do without confirmation bias to make them feel all cozy and justified?

((headdesk))

The criticism about how “Most men don’t think deeply about the dewy greenness of nature.” really peeved me. Putting aside whether or not this is true, why should every male character have to be be like "most" men? Doesn't writing toward a stereotype--whether or not the stereotype is "true"--sort of violate basic ideas about what good writing is? At least, when I read, I don't wish to read about characters rigorously composed of average behaviors. They only eat what most people eat, talk like most men or women, and hold opinions strictly occupying the center of any debate.

It angers me how confined portrayals of men are in our culture lately. The confines aren't so narrow for men as for women, but it's still sickening to see. In some circles, men can be extraordinary in their physical prowess all day long (in fact, in some genres, it's an absolute must), but they dare not be extraordinarily thoughtful souls, no sir!

This idiot would have rejected Walt Whitman and Henry David Thoreau (great men, rather than "most" men)--and all the Romantic poets, as you say--for thinking too deeply, no doubt.

Argh.

On the positive side, it never gets old watching smart people take gender essentialism out and spank it silly. Bless!

Off your note about Wuthering Heights, there's a neat bit in "How to Suppress Women's Writing" where Joanna Russ talks about how the perception of it as a book about romance seemed to develop after people discovered that its writer was a woman. Prior to that, there appears to have been more discussion of its other elements. And over in Science Fiction, there's the merry story of how James Tiptree Jr. was heralded for his thrusting, brutal, uniquely masculine clarity of thought until everybody learned that their uber-masculine James was born an Alice.

This is something I get an awful lot of, as a female writer of gay romance. People seem to be unable to accept that there isn't an unbridgeable gap between the sexes. And yet at the same time that people are telling me I can't possibly understand the mysteries of the male mind, I have male readers writing to me as 'Mr. Beecroft' and saying they recognized themselves in my characters.

This gender stereotyping is disrespectful to all genders, in my opinion. I happen to be married to a thoughtful, articulate man who is perfectly well aware of his emotions and a great admirer of nature. Offered a choice between a man like that and a man like the romance stereotypes, I'd take the reality any time.

"the merry story of how James Tiptree Jr. was heralded for his thrusting, brutal, uniquely masculine clarity of thought until everybody learned that their uber-masculine James was born an Alice."

Presumably only male writers can be "thrusting," because only they have a phallus!

"they dare not be extraordinarily thoughtful souls, no sir!"

Indeed, and yet, if you read some of the letters written by soldiers during the American Civil War, you'd get a very different impression of what real men are like. There's one, written by Harvey Black to his wife Mary, most of which is devoted to his recollections of her and their courtship. It's only at the end that social expectations make their presence felt: "maybe you will say it looks ridiculous to see a man getting grayhaired to be writing love letters, so I will use the remnant of my paper otherwise."

Then there's a letter from "Daniel Blain, a Confederate soldier in the 1st Rockbridge Artillery of Virginia, to Loulie , who later became his wife" in which he shows no jealousy at all about Loulie's flirtations with other men.

Sarah my love for you is deathless, it seems to bind me with mighty cables that nothing but Omnipotence could break; and yet my love of Country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me unresistibly on with all these chains to the battle field. [...]

something whispers to me—perhaps it is the wafted prayer of my little Edgar, that I shall return to my loved ones unharmed. If I do not my dear Sarah, never forget how much I love you, and when my last breath escapes me on the battle field, it will whisper your name. Forgive my many faults and the many pains I have caused you. How thoughtless and foolish I have often times been! How gladly would I wash out with my tears every little spot upon your happiness . . .

But, O Sarah! If the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you; in the gladdest days and in the darkest nights . . . always, always, and if there be a soft breeze upon your cheek, it shall be my breath, as the cool air fans your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by.

He did die, a week later.

Alex, it seems that, as with the Bronte's pseudonyms and Bev Vincent's experience, your name also leads to people being "tricked into self-revelation" concerning their attitudes towards gender.

"This gender stereotyping is disrespectful to all genders, in my opinion."

I agree. It doesn't recognise the diversity that exists between individuals and it can be very limiting to people of both sexes, both in terms of what they can write and more generally, because it reflects social attitudes towards other behaviours and forms of expression in real life.

Thank you, Bev, for sharing your experience. I'm glad you did, because although its saddening to read, what happened to you was such a blatant example of sexism that it demonstrates extremely clearly the kind of prejudices that exist, and simultaneously demonstrates that they're based on gender stereotypes rather than on accurate knowledge of how individual men and women actually write, feel and behave.

That proves it! Wordsworth was a woman! After all, she wrote about flowers and clouds and things, right? I think that's going to make a fabulous topic for my next book-length study: "Wordsworth - The Hidden Woman."

I've always hated those rigid distinctions of women are like this and men are like that. Yet gender distinctions seem to be getting more rigid. Ten years ago, very few people would have dared to openly claim that men and women were fundamentally different at a psychological level. Now that sort of idea is not just common but respectable.

It also seems to me that gender roles are more rigid in the US than in many European countries. And since the majority of romance novels come from the US, those rigid gender stereotypes are particularly prevalent in the genre and also demanded by many readers. Hence, you get regular complaints when a hero isn't alpha enough or rather if he doesn't conform to stereotypes what an alpha hero should be like. On the other hand, you have romance readers complaining that Eve Dallas and various urban fantasy heroines are too bitchy and not feminine enough.

I always find it particularly amusing when heroes in historical romances can get away with all sorts of jerk behaviour, because supposedly that sort of behaviour is historically accurate. Whereas, when you look at real literature from the 18th and 19th century, you will find a very different picture of masculinity.

Hence, we have Werther from Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther who falls to his knees and kisses the pale red ribbons on the gown of his beloved and generally behaves like a whiny emo-kid (sorry, but I've never liked Werther). Or we have the protagonist of Ann Radcliffe's The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne who not just uses the time spent incarcerated in the castle of his sworn enemy to write poetry about nature and lush greenery but also faints at the sight of an executioner sharpening his axe, ironically after Mrs Radcliffe has spent a page telling us how brave her hero is.

Just try to imagine a Regency hero acting like Werther or the hero of one of those Scotland set historicals behaving like the hero of Mrs Radcliffe's novel.

"those rigid gender stereotypes are particularly prevalent in the genre and also demanded by many readers"

I think that when people write or talk about "real men" they can be referring to

(a) actual men(b) men who embody an ideal (or stereotype, depending on one's point of view) of manhood(c) a conflation of the two.

Actual, real-life men may well not be "real men" in that second sense of the term, and that's something I wanted to explore when I chose the title of my post.

Taken as a whole, the advice that's given to romance writers ends up as (c), because on the one hand there's advice based on pseudo-scientific "facts" derived from the study of men, and advice to female authors such as the suggestion that they go and listen to some men talking, but on the other hand, there's often an expectation that romance heroes will be exceptional, and sometimes even non-human.

Although some romance authors do write more realistic romances, there are a lot of romances about vampires and werewolves which are clearly not striving for realism, and although dukes, billionaires, spies and SEALs do exist, they only make up a very small proportion of the total number of men on the planet. You don't, however, find many romance heroes who work in call centres, supermarkets, factories etc, even though a lot of men work in retail, in the service industries and in manual jobs which don't require lots of muscle to be on show.

I've also noticed that romance heroes tend to be

(a) very tall (usually well over 6 feet tall, even though this is significantly above average).(b) very muscled(c) very handsome/ruggedly attractive(d) and they do not tend to have receding hairlines even if they're in their late 30s.

So given that their professions and appearance don't match up to the average male, but instead seem to reflect a hyper-attractive ideal, I think a lot of romance heroes embody a particular ideal of hyper-masculinity.

Getting back to Werther and Mrs Radcliffe's fainting hero, since I doubt that actual men in that period all behaved like Werther, I suspect they reflect a very different construct of ideal masculinity from the one embodied in the ultra-alpha modern romance hero.

And as far as using stereotypes about men to identify the gender of the author is concerned, I think Sandra's right that Wordsworth would have to be female. Goethe too, since he created a hero like Werther.

I sometimes think, as a writer, that the best thing would be if we all used gender-neutral names or initials, and displayed only avatars or icons instead of photos.

But as a reader, I always find myself wondering about the sex of the author, based more on the writing style than on whether the heroes are stereotypically "masculine" enough. I don't defend this kind of speculation--I merely admit that I can't help it. It seems to me an unavoidable part of human curiosity.

What's most interesting in this discussion is to see how ideals of masculinity have changed over time and across cultures. Especially for those of us writing about gay or bisexual men in the past, it's good to be aware that behavior and language that we would read today as "gay" were often acceptable or even fashionable ways for gentleman to show off their sensitivity and education.

And as far as using stereotypes about men to identify the gender of the author is concerned, I think Sandra's right that Wordsworth would have to be female. Goethe too, since he created a hero like Werther.

The curious thing is that Goethe was not only undoubtedly male, but in his personal life with his many lovers he matched the rake heroes found in modern historical romances quite well.

What's most interesting in this discussion is to see how ideals of masculinity have changed over time and across cultures. Especially for those of us writing about gay or bisexual men in the past, it's good to be aware that behavior and language that we would read today as "gay" were often acceptable or even fashionable ways for gentleman to show off their sensitivity and education.

Of course, the intense male friendships frequently portrayed in period literature can read as gay and occasionally are interpreted as such. Approached from a 21st century POV, the relationship between Marquis Posa and Don Carlos in the eponymous drama by Goethe's contemporary and friend Friedrich Schiller has definite homoerotic undertones, a thought which most likely did not occur to readers and viewer of the period.

"it's good to be aware that behavior and language that we would read today as "gay" were often acceptable or even fashionable ways for gentleman to show off their sensitivity and education."

Just to give an example from a much earlier period, the Poema de mio Cid tells the story of Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, the Cid, the great eleventh-century Castilian hero, who has been exiled by his king, and it opens with him weeping as he leaves his home. When the king is finally willing to see him again, the Cid (around line 2020 of the epic poem) gets on his hands and knees on the ground in front of the king and starts to bite the grass and cry for joy. The king is somewhat taken aback by this show of humility and tells the Cid to kiss his hands rather than his feet and says that if he doesn't do that, he won't have the king's love. As discussed by Jack Weiner (the text is in Castilian), in this period there were specific ways in which vassals and their lords greeted each other, each indicating different degrees of humility or closeness, and this included the lord kissing the vassal on the mouth, as also happens in the PMC.

"Don't you find that even this post itself is somewhat stereotypical?"

In what sense?

The examples I and others have brought up on this thread certainly aren't comprehensive, but one couldn't, in a single blog post, give a comprehensive exploration of the wide range of behaviours exhibited by individual men both throughout history, and across cultures.

Perhaps you mean that the post and comments stereotype the romance genre? If so, perhaps it's because you're taking this single post out of context. Teach Me Tonight explores, celebrates and critiques the romance genre. In this particular post I've chosen to focus on instances of guidance given to romance authors which seem to provide parallels to Bev Vincent's experience inasmuch as they advocate that romance authors write their male characters in particular ways. This should in no way be taken to imply that

(a) I believe romance authors should never write alpha males or (b) I believe romance authors only write alpha males or(c) I don't believe that there are some men who behave and think in typically "manly" ways.

I'm just suggesting that men are individuals and they differ. Romance authors are also individuals, and their works and portrayals of men differ.

Thank you for citing those lovely letters! I enjoyed reading them very much; there's something so strangely immediate about catching a long gone away person's voice in print like that. They definitely seemed to have been following notions of manhood that allowed for wider emotional expression, at least in context of letters to loved ones. (Only slightly disturbing part was Harvey Black and how he said he "contemplated by aid of memory the form and features of this little [12 year old] girl." Gah. I realize cultural differences are smacking me in the face here. But if we start having historical lead males who are more accurate, I hope we leave out the longing after little girls bit. ;)

On another note, I've been thinking about how different and more rigid gender roles are in Romance--which is largely written for and by women--and fanfiction, which is also a largely female endeavor. In my experience, there's far more liberty not just in varieties of relationships (slash, het, threesomes or moresomes, BDSM, etc.), but even within the het fic community, there's the eroticization of masculinites which contain wider emotional expression and femme physical characteristics which just aren't there as much in Romance. For instance, I hang out a bit in Labyrinth fandom where women write novel-length fanfics about a relationship between a woman and a non-human male (often written as member of the Fair Folk) who is slender, has "girly" hair, seems to be wearing makeup, uses game playing, circumlocution and "feminine" cunning, and enjoys doing drama queen magic involving glitter. And all these non-butch behaviors are lovingly described and considered selling points, part of his sexual appeal. After the endless parade of butcher-than-butch werewolves and vampires and demons, I picked up a romance with a fairy male as the hero expecting it might hit some of the same buttons as the Labyrinth fic only to find a fairy written with the same overbearingly butch characteristics as the werewolves and vampires. Overbearingly straightforward and domineering, plain faced, beefy body, etc etc. Blah, blah, blah sameness cakes!((shakes head)) I don't understand why we even have different species of heroes if they're all going to behave the same.

I'm wondering if the authors of and audience for fanfic trends younger and is perhaps more open to fluidity of gender roles and sexiness? Or maybe fanfic, not being a profit enterprise, can afford to appeal to small niches that Romance can't be bothered with. If it's the former, maybe time will sort things out and we'll end up having greater gender and sex expression in a decade or so?

...that is m/m Romance (particularly in ebooks?) seems to be benefiting (?) from an influx of slash fanfic writers.

I realize I've probably rambled on about this topic before, but it never ceases to confuse me how different two genres meant to appeal to the same sexual and emotional interests of the same group can be so different. It's like Romance is an ice cream parlor that's decided there's only three True Flavors and anybody who wants peach or rocky road (which seem wildly popular) has to go get it from anyone kind enough to make a batch at home on the down low. It's weird as a business model, unless there's some explanation. Or rampaging stupidity about women readers and their desires.

I like your ice-cream metaphor. I'm sure you're right that some markets are more niche than others, and that it's easier for experimental works to be written and published as fanfic or for commercial but still relatively small epresses.

Oh, dear! I (heart) step #7: "Look at your boyfriend through a Kaleidoscope at all times." LOL.

Despite the popularity of Edward Cullen, I imagine that sparkles would become tiresome even to those who admire them if they were part of some new list of mandatory hero features. It's interesting to me how the formulaic aspects of the genre can be something very special and satisfying about it (like Pamela Regis's eight essential elements) and simultaneously something so frustratingly disappointing when it comes to cookie cutter characters. It really, really works for stuff like the Moment of Ritual Death--which I didn't know I loved and longed for in my Romance until I saw it described here--and really really doesn't with insane attachment to really narrow gender roles. It's both a feature and a bug.

It's interesting to me how the formulaic aspects of the genre can be something very special and satisfying about it (like Pamela Regis's eight essential elements) and simultaneously something so frustratingly disappointing.

I suppose one could imagine that Regis's elements describe the major internal organs of each romance, whereas the "cookie cutter" or gender role aspects are perhaps more like washboard abs or flowing hair. Romances with those latter features might be common in the genre, but they're certainly not of vital importance in keeping the romance alive, and lots of romances don't have those features. Without the internal organs, though, the romance would collapse and die.

That said, I think I could probably enjoy a novel without any moment of ritual death or a "barrier", because I imagine one could write a novel which was a detailed character study of two people falling in love with no particular obstacle to them getting together. Whether or not most people would find that exciting enough to read about, I don't know, and I also don't know whether they'd think of it as a "romance" rather than as "romantic fiction."

I love learning from this blog --such interesting stuff--and though I'm no acadenic and respect your studies, I do have first-hand experience that SOME men and SOME women do speak a completely different langauge. My husband is very logical and very smart, but the man can NOT communicate clearly. He has a completely different definition for a lot of words than I do. We once had a horrible argument, extremely hurtful to me, that went on for several hours until I finally realized he defined a certain word completely differently than me. Also, he does NOT think about nature --in any form--he doesn't EVER call his parents, and his favorite form of entertainment is watching cartoons with his kids. What he'll do when he doesn't have kids as his excuse, I don't know. And I'm not alone. I've spoken with women friends who say their husbands are the same way.So, there ARE reasons for these stereotypes of men, and I agree, they are stereotypes, and no work of fiction should be judged or prejudged or told how it should sound or be written based on the gender of the author.However, in ROMANCE fiction, there is --generally speaking--a certain "Expectation" for ROMANCE HEROES. After all, Romance fiction is about fulfilling a fantasy. Most women who read romance --not all--but most--want their hero to be uber-masculine, but sensitive. When I want a "real" man, with all his foibles and faults, I spend time with my husband. :)

I'm delighted you love reading the blog, but I have to admit that my area of academic expertise is really very limited, and it's definitely not in psychology, biology, anthropology, or linguistics so when I offer opinions about subjects like those, as I did in this post, I'm mostly passing on information gleaned from others who have studied those subjects, such as Deborah Cameron, who's Rupert Murdoch Professor of Language and Communication at Oxford University and whose research interests are in Sociolinguistics, language and gender, language attitudes and ideologies, and language and media. I would have referred directly to Janet Shibley Hyde's "The Gender Similarities Hypothesis" (2005) which is a review of 46 meta-analyses in this area, so is an overview of a huge amount of data, but unfortunately I'm pretty much clueless about statistics, so I didn't feel too comfortable with the idea of quoting from it, in case I misrepresented some of the stats.

"I do have first-hand experience that SOME men and SOME women do speak a completely different langauge."

I'm sure there are some specific male individuals who are very different from specific female individuals, and I've no reason to doubt what you wrote about your husband and "PM" in your blog post titled" Are Men Really from Mars?"

From what little I do understand of the statistics, though, no-one's denying that some men do fall towards that end of the spectrum of behaviour.

in ROMANCE fiction, there is --generally speaking--a certain "Expectation" for ROMANCE HEROES. After all, Romance fiction is about fulfilling a fantasy. Most women who read romance --not all--but most--want their hero to be uber-masculine, but sensitive. When I want a "real" man, with all his foibles and faults, I spend time with my husband. :)

The point you make about romance "fulfilling a fantasy" and romance heroes not being "real men" is interesting given the way that advice about writing heroes sometimes (as in the examples I quoted by PBW and Leigh Michaels) suggests that heroes should be based on actual men, at least to some extent. Do you think that this kind of advice should be read as really suggesting that authors should take "real men" as models but then ramp up certain aspects of them, to make them hyper-masculine in some areas, and minimise others aspects, to make the heroes more sensitive than the usual fairly-hyper-masculine man would be in real life?

What you say about most women wanting heroes to be "uber-masculine" would seem to fit with what Angel said about the emergence of other types of heroes in fan fic. There clearly are women who prefer not to read about "uber-masculine" men (and I'd count myself among that number, even though I definitely don't want the heroes I read about to sparkle!) but I wouldn't be surprised if romance readers with preferences like mine are in the minority. That said, it's not as though romances with "beta" heroes aren't ever published by traditional publishers, so the minority who like them must be a relatively sizeable one.